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KATE SANBORN 




KATE SANBtJRX 



KATE SANBORN 



JULY II, 1839 
JULY 9, 1917 



BOSTON 

^hCcgRATH-SHERRILL TRESS 
I 9 I 8 



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T T mighi be said of Miss Sanborn that her best memorial is 
the impression that she left upon the minds of those who 
knew her. No attempt at a formal written memorial would 
satisfy the friends who cherish the memory of her living 
presence. But Miss Sanborn had an unusual number of friends^ 
many of whom may value the reproductions of her photographs 
and a brief sketch of her life. She was a pioneer in opening the 
paths of independent work for women^ and her success was 
remarkable and inspiring. It seems worth while also for all 
memoirs to be preserved that help to illustrate the influence of 
the Puritan stock by which New England was peopled. While 
Miss Sanborn in her volume of " Memories and Anecdotes " 
has given a series of pictures of her experience., she kept her- 
self in the background^ and there is still opportunity to recall 
the personal factor which was the chief secret of her success. 

In making this sketch of Miss Sanborn s life it was felt that 
she would not have wished anything to be written about her 
that was solemnly formal or tinged with melancholy . Her 
character was remarkably reflected in her features and bearing 
and for that reason a number of her photographs taken at 
different times have been used. Nothing was more characteristic 
of Miss Sanborn than her loyal attachment to her family and 
friends. It would hardly be possible to depict her life without 
some description and pictures of those to whom she was most 
closely related. Special attention has been given to her early 
associations because that part of her life is least known to her 
friends., and its story brings out her genial philosophy of living 
as well as the spirit in which she made her way to a career 
of rare achievement. 

EDWIN W. SANBORN 

136 West 44.th Street 
New York City 



KATE SANBORN 

IN estimating all that has been given to the nation 
by the old New England stock, it is generally 
recognized that the women played at least as 
important a part as the men. But the mental picture 
of the early New England women is a composite 
photograph, a picture of a type which commands 
respect for its unselfish toil and devotion at home. 
We think of few instances where young women born 
in a New England village went out into the world 
like the traditional New England boy and made their 
own way by native humor, versatility, energy and 
intellectual force. Yet the inheritance of such natural 
gifts was the only capital with which Miss Sanborn 
began her career, and she always acknowledged the 
debt to her New England ancestry and associations. 
She specially admired the character of her mother's 
grandfather Captain Ebenezer Webster, a fine type of 
the New England pioneer. As a young man he fought 
with the famous Rogers' Rangers in the French and 
Indian Wars — at Crown Point, Ticonderoga, in Can- 
ada, and on many expeditions into the northern wilder- 
ness. When the French wars were over he cleared a 
farm in the wilderness, where wolves howled and 
Indians planned their raids, and built a log cabin of 
which his son Daniel said that its smoke rose nearer 
the frontier of Canada than that of any other settler. 
"When the alarm of war with England sounded," to 

9 



quote from Senator Lodge, "among the first to respond 
was the old ranger and Indian fighter Ebenezer 
Webster. In the town which had grown up near his 
once solitary dwelling, he raised a company of two 
hundred men, and marched at their head, a splendid 
looking leader, dark, massive and tall, to join the forces 
at Boston." He inherited what was known as the 
Batchelder complexion, of which General Stark re- 
marked with a grin that it was useful for a soldier, as 
no amount of gunpowder could blacken it. 

His company guarded the headquarters of Washing- 
ton at Dorchester Heights and the General called him 
into consultation. At Bennington he was remembered 
as saying to his men, " We must get nearer, boys," 
while they were working their way through the 
brush in the manner of Indian fighters. Miss Sanborn 
kept as sacred relics a pair of shoe buckles which he 
wore when going over the breastworks of the British 
and Hessians at the head of his men. At West Point 
when Arnold's treachery was discovered, General 
Washington sent for Ebenezer Webster to guard his 
tent, saying with a smile, ** Captain Webster, I think 
I can trust you." It is a tradition that Washington, 
distracted over the treason of Arnold, paced back and 
forth for most of the night, biting nervously at the 
knotted head of a heavy hickory stick. 

His neighbors trusted Captain Webster as his general 
had done, and gave him every office in their gift. He 
was prompt, resolute and determined, but as Daniel 



Webster testified, he was also good-humored and 
facetious. " He was religious, but not sour, having a 
heart that he seemed to have borrowed from a lion." 

Of the value of inheritance of character from such 
a man, Senator Lodge says, " There were splendid 
sources of strength in this man, the outcome of such 
a race, from which his children could draw. Force 
of will, force of mind, force of character ; these were 
the three predominant qualities in Ebenezer Webster." 

Captain Webster's son, Ezekiel Webster, was gifted 
with the same tall, straight, massive figure, and the 
same fine traits of character. The lines of his face were 
marks of refinement and distinction. Though ener- 
getic and determined, he was hampered by modesty 
and reserve. Cap'n Eb. used to say that " Ezekiel 
couldn't tell half he knew, but Daniel could tell 
more than he knew." Ezekiel Webster was slow in 
pushing himself forward as a public man, but at the 
time of his early death he was a leader of the bar in 
northern New England, and among the most dis- 
tinguished citizens of that region. 

To consider one's own mother as the best mother 
that ever lived is the natural impulse of every one. 
Miss Sanborn was particularly loyal in that sentiment. 
Her mother, Mary Webster Sanborn, one of the two 
daughters of Ezekiel Webster, was a beautiful, dainty, 
refined woman who had all the religious fervor of 
New England, the unselfish devotion to family and 
to every sense of duty, without any trace of harshness 



II 



or narrowness. She was gifted with gentle humor 
and a sense of proportion, with a rare fund of human 
sympathy. In a natural, neighborly way she carried 
help to all who were poor or sick or disheartened. 
Even now, more than fifty years after her death, there 
are old citizens at Hanover who are deeply affected 
at any reminder of her friendship, as if by a personal 
loss of yesterday. Mrs. Sanborn had marked intellec- 
tual tastes and wrote for many publications of her 
time. She understood the impulsive temperament of 
her talented daughter Kate, and furnished just the 
right touch of sympathy and encouragement. 

On her father's side Miss Sanborn was equally in- 
debted to her New England ancestry. Her father, 
Edwin D. Sanborn, was for nearly fifty years a pro- 
fessor in Dartmouth College except for a few years' 
connection with the Washington University at St. 
Louis. In his later life his department was that of 
English literature. Professor Sanborn was a big man 
in body and mind. He had broad views, practical com- 
mon sense, and direct methods of thought and action. 
He was one of the old type of college professors 
whose strong personality and natural gift of imparting 
knowledge impressed themselves on the pupil. If he 
had a weakness it was in the way of closing the eye 
which happened to be turned toward the escapades 
and delinquencies of the young men. He made every 
effort to help them to go on with their education. 
He was a living library of learning, but was at his 




EZEKIEL WEBSTER 



best when pouring forth his funds of information in 
informal talks. He was beloved as well as respected 
by half a hundred classes of college students. 

Professor Sanborn's father was a worthy example of 
the early New England farmer. He gradually acquired 
one tract of land after another in the town of Gilman- 
ton until he owned the equivalent of a square mile of 
hill farms. He had taught school as a young man and 
was specially proud of his penmanship. His love 
letters addressed to Miss Hannah Hook, who became 
his wife, are beautiful specimens of old-fashioned 
penmanship, as perfect as copperplate. One would 
have no hesitation in exhibiting this courtship corre- 
spondence, as every letter began with the words 
"Honoured Madam," and the formal sentiments were 
in keeping with that style of address. Hannah Hook 
Sanborn's father, **Gransir" Hook, was an ancestor 
whom Miss Sanborn loved in memory as much as she 
admired Captain Eb. Webster. Gransir Hook was the 
soul of quaint, earthy. New England humor and jolly 
good nature. He was a living confirmation of the 
** laugh and grow fat " adage, and his testimony con- 
tinued even after his life had ended. He had been for 
many years confined to the house, and to remove the 
prodigious casket after the funeral it was necessary to 
cut away the wall at one side of the front door. 

In tributes of one kind or another which Miss San- 
born received during her life and in letters of sympathy 
written after her death, the adjective most commonly 

13 



applied to her was the word *' unique." The blending 
of traits which came to her from the ancestors so 
briefly sketched may interest Miss Sanborn's friends 
as explaining the unusual combination of qualities in 
her character, especially her driving energy and a 
restless aspiration to acquire knowledge and to accom- 
plish something worth while ; also a friendly, helpful 
interest in people about her, combined with quick 
wit and a saving sense of humor. 

Lest it might appear that with these gifts it was 
easier for a girl of that time to make her way in the 
world than for the thousands of young women who 
are now facing the problems of active life, it should 
be considered that the difficulties which confronted 
a young woman at that time were more serious than 
now ; difficulties that one can hardly understand who 
never lived in the grim and severe atmosphere of the 
old-fashioned New England village. 

Until after the middle of the nineteenth century the 
homespun idea in rural New England was still the key 
to everything in life and character. Only a few am- 
bitious young men were prompted to go out into the 
world. Except for Boston and a few smaller cities, 
the outside world was little different from the world 
at home. Following a habit of two hundred years it 
had become the natural practice for young people 
merely to remove from the paternal farm to another 
similar farm not far away. Each household, like each 
community was self-sustaining. The "independent 

H 




From a daguerreotype 



MISS SANBORN AT AN EARLY AGE 



farmer " was really independent. He produced his own 
food and clothing. He drew sweetness from sugar 
maples and dipped light from tallow. He made his 
own sleds, brooms, medicines, and often his own tools, 
rope, shingles, boxes, barrels, and furniture. Miss San- 
born did much of her writing at a desk of " curly " 
maple which Captain Ebenezer Webster made for 
his own use after he became a judge and a man of 
business affairs. She also had an extraordinary com- 
bination in mahogany of bureau, cabinet, and book- 
case, made by Deacon Long of Hanover. In the San- 
born home as late as 1870 candle moulds stood on 
shelves at the head of the cellar stairs. Down cellar 
in a dry, soft atmosphere of pleasing mystery, redolent 
of Baldwins, Pearmains, and Russets, the flickering 
candle light fell on shelves of homemade preserves 
or on a great bin of potatoes which must require 
" sprouting " from the boys of the family on Saturday 
afternoons in the inviting weather of springtime. 
There were piles of pumpkins, squashes, and other 
potential sources of pie. One who was sent down 
cellar to consult the pork barrel had to be careful not 
to stumble over or into a long, deep tub of soft soap. 
A barrel of cider passed through its seasonal phases — 
the too brief period of snap and tang when the new 
cider might be drawn through a straw ; the hard cider 
stage when medicinal doses might be withdrawn by 
mature members of the family favored with signs of 



15 



rheumatism ; and the final lapse into the austere ma- 
turity of vinegar. 

Upstairs in the kitchen the walls under the ceiling 
were bordered with great pieces of dried beef hanging 
from hooks and with festoons of dried apples. Out in 
the back yard forty cords of wood stood in long piles 
to carry the household through the rigors of winter. 
Farmers from over in Vermont hauled in the wood 
in cordwood lengths upon sleds, the sleds being drawn 
by oxen, driven with much vociferation up the long 
hill from the river. A dozen of these sleds stood where 
the principal streets of the village crossed, offering an 
open market where citizens might buy maple, birch, 
beech, and other hardwood fuels, at an average of 
$4.00 a cord. In the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury several mechanical inventions came into use, but 
in the opinion of the boys of that time the most 
important of all was the sawing machine which moved 
from one house to another, and by horse power sawed 
up the family cord wood. The privilege of splitting 
and piling the wood, and of serving it to the voracious 
stoves and open fires still remained. The sawing ma- 
chine is an illustration of the fact that in the early 
times even the factories came to the individual home, 
completing the sufficiency of home life and diverting 
the mind from the leaving of home. Even if one 
wished to get away, travel was no easy matter, par- 
ticularly for those living north of White River Junc- 
tion. Railroad trains were drawn by small, asthmatic 

16 



locomotives having large smokestacks shaped like an 
inverted volcano. Delays were frequent to slake the 
thirst of the engine and to replenish the itinerant 
woodpile which served as fuel. The cars had low, 
flat roofs and small, cinder-cemented windows and 
were but little better ventilated than the drawing 
room cars of the present day. Indeed, the thought of 
travel was still afl^'ected, through suggestion, by the 
Concord Coach idea. The Concord coach is even now 
lumbering in hundreds of villages between Main Street 
and the depot. It presents one of two pictures to the 
mind. We see it rattling along at a jog trot pace, 
swaying and creaking and enveloped in a cloud of 
dust ; or else it is dragging slowly on a heavy road, 
the spokes of its wheels painfully lifting huge loads 
of dripping mire and mud. Mud or dust always goes 
with a Concord coach. To successive generations 
travel had come to mean doing time for one livelong 
day after another in a stage coach ; and this mental 
attitude had made the stay-at-home habit the more 
persistent. 

Of course Hanover was different from other places 
in being a New England village plus a college; but the 
effect was to intensify rather than to modify the pre- 
vailing scheme of things. As late as 1850 all the col- 
leges of New England were " seats of learning " of 
the old-fashioned sort. At the opening of the academic 
year the country colleges welcomed the candidates 
for matriculation, some of whom still arrived on a 

»7 



farm wagon, drawn by the horse which could be most 
easily spared from farm work, and bearing the blessing 
of their mothers and the seed-cakes of their grand- 
mothers. Chapel exercises were held before daylight 
in midwinter, in chapels lighted by candles and heated 
by the Aurora Borealis. A chronic form of suicide, 
known as "boarding one's self," was not uncommon 
among the students. The lack of amusements and of 
rational forms of exercise led to such laborious forms of 
pleasantry as gathering the blinds and gates of the 
village upon the campus or the elevation of a horse 
or cow to the college belfry. 

The close connection of the college with the rural 
life about it appeared at commencement week when 
hundreds of farmers drove in from miles around and 
hitched their horses along the Cemetery Lane. At 
one end of the campus (then called the common), in 
the College Church, were performed the solemn 
ceremonies of commencement. Everything suggested 
local sentiment and strong individuality of mind and 
person. The trustees were venerable and distinguished 
men, each accustomed to go his own gait. Their 
methods of procedure were so eccentric and centrifu- 
gal that the master of ceremonies found it no easy 
task to round them up for the formal procession to 
the church. Even at the steps of the sacred edifice, 
with a sweltering congregation within anxiously 
awaiting their arrival, they often blocked the parade 
by stopping to greet friends upon the side lines. When 

i8 




MISS SANBORN TN CtIRLHOOI) 



they finally made their way up the steps with a clatter 
of canes and crutches, the courtly marshal had gen- 
erally reached a state of profane exasperation. No 
less than twenty-four members of the graduating class 
took part in the exercises of commencement, their 
performances consisting of discourses in Greek and 
Latin, Orations and " Forensic Disputations." At the 
further end of the campus was a line of booths where 
lemonade, popcorn and other refreshments were sold 
and where the usual features of a country fair attracted 
a crowd of visitors. Dogs and small boys from rival 
districts engaged in disputations which were not 
always forensic. 

The life of families connected with the college was 
not very different from that in other villages. The 
professors owned large gardens or small farms and 
their spare time was fully occupied with the outdoor 
and indoor cares of the family. Dwellers in the apart- 
ments of the cities can form no idea of the cares of 
housekeeping in the days of old. Queer, quaint things 
were constantly happening, often trivial or ridiculous, 
but going to make up a vivid record of household 
history. The localized spirits of fire and water were 
always busy. Pipes froze in winter and were parched 
by the droughts of summer. The big chimney in the 
middle of Professor Sanborn's house was at once his 
reliance for comfort and the disturber of his peace. 
When the alarm arose that " the chimney is on fire," 
the family rushed to the leather fire buckets which 

19 



hung in the front hall. They formed a fire line and 
passed up water to protect the shingle roof. Salt must 
be carried up and poured down the flues. In the 
autumn vast colonies of chimney swallows made them- 
selves at home in the big chimney. Once when a fire 
was started early in the season they became confused 
by the smoke. Hundreds of them tumbled down and 
came out through the fireplace into the family parlor. 
In the morning the carpet was covered with several 
inches of soot, and the chairs, " what-not," and Miss 
Kate's Hallett & Davis piano were by no means neg- 
lected. At another time in the sepulchral silence of 
a winter night the family were aroused by a faint, 
ghostl)^ tinkle of the front door bell. The next night 
the uncanny sound was repeated. The head of the 
house arose, armed himself with an iron poker and 
opened the front door. Snow was gently falling but 
there was no trace of footprints. Even while he stood 
there shivering, the bell rang again as if to mock his 
efforts. The house seemed fated to become as famous 
for supernatural disturbances as that of the eminent 
theologian in Massachusetts whose abode was haunted 
so long by mysterious noises, rappings and overturn- 
ings of furniture. The bell knob on the front door 
was connected by a wire with the bell near the kitchen 
ceiling, hanging at the end of a coil. The bell wire 
ran just over a shelf in the closet at the head of the 
cellar stairs. The rats had opened a passageway through 
the walls on either side and were using this shelf as 




z 

. X 



a nocturnal thoroughfare, setting the wire in motion 
in their hasty passage. Such whimsical happenings 
would be out of place even in an informal sketch of 
Miss Sanborn's life, except for the fact that they 
appealed to her sense of humor and helped to develop 
her power of telling stories. It was the common and 
amusing incidents of daily life that furnished material 
for her earliest efforts as a writer. To write in a sen- 
sible and amusing way about matters of everyday life 
in which people were really interested was then some- 
thing of an innovation. The ordinary tone of writing 
was stilted and full of mild moralizing. For a chance 
example, in a magazine article of 1852 describing 
the wearing apparel of early New England, we note 
after a description of the shoes of the period that 
" while appendages for the feet are properly provided, 
true ornaments of the mind and heart should not be 
neglected." It was the first evidence of Miss Sanborn's 
initiative that in this formal atmosphere she marked 
out for herself a new field of literary work by close 
observation of what was going on about her and by 
describing it in a novel style that was fresh, natural 
and full of animation. 

In recalling her early memories. Miss Sanborn 
wrote : " I can't quite go back to quiltings, spinning 
bees, * singing meetings,' and spelling matches, or to 
the shoemakers who went from house to house with 
bench and lapstone, making a supply of shoes for the 
whole family, nor to the invaluable tailoress who car- 



21 



ried her goose and pressboard, but I distinctly do recall 
the dressmaker, who came to us with big shears (I 
can still feel them clipping round my neck) and brass 
thimble without a top ; who made our dresses for 
twenty-five cents a day ; and considering the creations 
evolved, I think she was too well paid. Money was 
precious and scarce, but I knew nothing of the mi- 
serly scrimping and meanness that are often allied to 
close economy. Nor did I see aught but the rosy side 
of farm life in my girlhood. The farmers who came 
to our door with their produce to sell were our friends 
and benefactors, well-to-do, * forehanded,' and * good 
providers ' for their own families. Two of these I 
remember with real affection. The first was Uncle 
Daniel Farnum, tall, lank, * lean-favored', with a twin- 
kling eye and a ready smile. He called potatoes * short 
sass;' carrots, beets, etc., * long sass;' and spoke of steaks 
and chops as * low meats ' in distinction from roasts. 
In his bounteous hospitality he was always urging us 
to * come over' in sugaring-ofF time, cherry time, 
plum time, hulled-corn time, beechnut time, molasses- 
candy time, etc. — a calendar of goodies for the entire 
year. He inclined to an alphabetical arrangement of 
his family, and at table he would say in his hearty 
way, * Hannah A., pass the butter; Abner B., run down 
cellar and draw a little cider; Ella C, help Kate to 
cottage cheese made to hum; Polly D., you tend to 
that pie.' He became at last a little crazed by the 
Millerite doctrine, and, prudently willing his prop- 




MISS SANBORN AS A YOUNG WOMAN 



erty to his wife, he prepared to go up. Alcott used 
to say, * Each one may decide when he will ascend,' 
and dear Uncle Daniel had that conviction in a lit- 
eral fashion. One evening he donned his white robe 
of departure — his *going-away gown' — and mounted 
to the ridge-pole ; but receiving no supernal summons 
nor assistance, returned to his anxious family to await 
orders. 

" The second stand-by was white-haired, rosy- 
cheeked, blue-eyed Father Newton, a veritable Cheer- 
yble brother, who came twice a week with goodies, 
and whom I often visited. Oh, the delights of taking 
tea there, and the sense of repletion that followed ! 
Oh, those big raised biscuits, the three kinds of sauce, 
four or five varieties of cake, and always pie in astound- 
ing variety ! — and why not pie when one can get 
such pies? Beecher knew what he was talking about 
when he said : *Apple pie should be eaten while it is 
yet florescent, white or creamy yellow, with the 
merest drip of candied juice along the edges ; of a 
mild and modest warmth ; the sugar suggesting jelly, 
yet not jellied ; the morsels of apple neither dissolved 
nor yet in original substance, but hanging, as it were, 
between the spirit and the flesh of applehood.' 

**And do you understand me when I refer to a 'pan- 
dowdy' and a * brown Betty'? If not, I condole with 
you. I would walk ten miles tonight to get again the 
robust welcome, the exuberant happiness, the old- 
fashioned sincerity, not omitting the well-spread table, 

23 



of those old-time visits. It has been the lasting remem- 
brance of such delights that made me aspire to a farm 
and a country home ; and my highest ambition socially 
is to make my dear friends as happy around my table 
as I used to be when a guest at 'Jericho'." 

While the wholesome pleasures of country living 
were enjoyed and appreciated, no one had dreamed of 
the developments of the present time in the way of 
outing clubs, winter sports, winter carnivals, and sys- 
tematic nature study. The boys collected birds' eggs 
and thought they had reached a high plane as scien- 
tific collectors if they refrained from taking away the 
entire domestic establishment of the birds. The girls 
pressed leaves and flowers, but the study of botany was 
almost neglected, and few of the residents of the 
village ever sought an opportunity to peep through the 
telescope of the college observatory. Veeries and her- 
mit thrushes every evening in the late spring and early 
summer chanted their marvelous antiphonal music 
from pine-clad slopes across the " Vale of Tempe," 
but very few people thought of walking up to attend 
this concert or knew the names of the performers. Few 
could identify more than a dozen of the commonest 
trees or had made a careful study of wild flowers or 
shrubs. 

That the sense of natural advantages was not broader 
and deeper was due no doubt in part to the confined 
outlook caused by primitive means of locomotion. It 
seemed too much to ask of the faithful family horse 

24 



or of the over-worked livery beast to climb the pinnacle 
of Pineo Hill, only a few miles from town, or to drag 
through the sands of the River Road for a dozen miles 
to the village of Thetford Hill, from which a beauti- 
ful view of the Connecticut Valley and of the north- 
ern mountains might be enjoyed. In the modern era 
of good roads, one who goes back for a summer visit, 
and is invited by a friend to whirl about in his car 
may in half an afternoon visit more of these fair Car- 
cassonnes than he ever dreamed of seeing throughout 
his life at Hanover. There was an occasional oppor- 
tunity to get a little instruction upon subjects outside 
the formal routine of school and college. Professor 
Mark Bailey came up from New Haven to give lessons 
in elocution, and soon after the Bissell gymnasium was 
opened, the Yale instructor in athletics came to Han- 
over and in addition to his work with the students, 
formed classes in calisthenics among the people in 
the village. A large number appeared for a time on 
the floor of the gymnasium and went through the 
movements with rings, wands and wooden dumbbells, 
but the interest was not of long duration. 

Beside the college library and a circulating library 
for children, there were good book stores in town. 
Through the Hanover Pamphlet Association the 
magazines of the day, such as LittelPs Living Age, 
Punchy Harper Sy and the Atlantic Monthly ^ were 
passed around from house to house, and there was a 
similar club for the new books worth reading. Mag- 

25 



azines and books were wrapped in a cover upon which 
was marked the length of time, one week or two 
weeks, for which the reading matter might be kept. 
It was then sent on to the nearest neighbor whose 
name was on the list. 

Perhaps the rarest privilege that Hanover offered 
was the association with men and women of culture, 
character and strong individuality. The enforced 
economy of professors in the college made the orna- 
mentation of their homes a matter of slight concern. 
In the home of Professor Sanborn few objects of art 
can be recalled other than discarded whale-oil lamps 
on the mantel and a few sea shells brought back by a 
missionary to the Orient. A religious publication called 
the Christian Union, an ancestor of the Outlook, aroused 
great interest by the announcement that it would give 
to every subscriber two pictures which should be 
triumphs of the newly perfected art of making chro- 
mos. The two chromo pictures were entitled JVide 
Awake and Fast Asleep, and when they arrived were 
carefully installed in the dining room. Both of these 
phrases might well be applied to the Hanover of 1 860. 
In the seclusion of a winter six months long and six 
feet deep, the outlook from a morning window 
revealed a scene of hibernation. No sign of life except 
pillars of smoke rising straight up from chimneys 
around the common. No sign of movement until the 
snow plow came nosing its way along the sidewalk 
and opened the path to the postoffice. Some of the 

26 




MARY W. SANBORN 



"advanced thinkers" of the time might have charged 
that the intellectual life of the place was not wide 
awake. But even if narrow it was surely awake. If 
thought was not as broad as at the present time, it 
was perhaps as deep. In a small group of intellectual 
persons of neighborly disposition and vitally interested 
in the best things, the friendships were full of satis- 
faction. There were interesting and stimulating people, 
some of them educational institutions in themselves. 
President Nathan Lord, a rugged old Roman, ranked 
with the best of the great college presidents. He not 
only had the power of imparting his sturdy traits to 
other individuals, but stamped them upon the college 
itself. The professors were forceful characters and 
interesting neighbors. In a chapter on " Bygones " 
Miss Sanborn said of the Dartmouth teachers : 

" College professors in a fresh-water college had but 
starvation salaries. How did they manage to live com- 
fortably on fifteen hundred dollars a year, entertaining 
willingly and generously the anxious parents of wild 
students, ministers who exchanged, agents for various 
societies, commencement orators, and stray mission- 
aries ; as well as to give class parties, supply themselves 
with needed books, and educate their families ? One 
of the trustees had but three hundred dollars per year 
as a pastor ; yet he lived well, kept a horse and cow, 
and educated three children. Of course, they could 
not afford to travel much. 

" I remember one professor saying of an associate 

27 



instructor : * John needs to travel to rub off sharp cor- 
ners and broaden his views. If he could only get to 
White River Junction, or possibly as far as Thetford, 
it would be an immense advantage/ But those same 
professors, overworked, underpaid, restricted by nar- 
row incomes and narrower codes of life, were scholars 
and heroes, and knew how to make men out of the 
rough, gawky material sent from the even poorer fam- 
ilies in New Hampshire and Vermont." 

Among other residents of the village Dr. Dixi 
Crosby was an ideal example of the old-time country 
doctor. Skilled in his profession, full of practical wis- 
dom and story-telling humor, his visits made a mod- 
erate attack of illness seem like an enviable experience. 
There could have been no more charming or lovable 
neighbor than Professor Putnam, to whom Miss San- 
born paid a beautiful tribute in her book of Memories 
and Anecdotes. The eloquent Professor Patterson, who 
had become a senator at Washington, brought home 
absorbing stories from the center of national life. 

There was an occasional function at Hanover which 
showed perhaps better than any other the neighborly 
cooperation of the people and the versatility of their 
talent. This was called an " illumination " and was 
observed only on rare occasions such as an important 
anniversary or the celebration of a Civil War victory. 
There was a torch-light procession in the evening 
and every window of every house on the line of the 
parade was illuminated. The light was furnished by a 

28 




THE FACULTY AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE IN THE 'FIFTIES 



short tallow candle standing on a three-cornered bit 
of tin plate which was fastened to the sash at the 
middle of the window. The Illuminati within were 
kept busy running from one window to another to 
trim the candles, keep them in place, and prevent 
their setting fire to the shades or curtains. A local 
band at the head of the procession played patriotic 
airs. Prominent citizens were called out to the porches 
of their homes to make speeches ; and they were as 
good speeches as could be heard anywhere — easy, 
scholarly, witty, and eloquent. It seldom failed that 
a flaring candle in at least one house set fire to some- 
thing ; and the Hanover Hook and Ladder Company 
was then evoked to make the affair complete. On 
such occasions, as well as in their daily life, the people 
were influenced by a friendly, community feeling. 
The village illuminations were hardly worthy to hold 
a candle to the blaze of lights of every late winter after- 
noon in a range of great, modern office buildings. 
But those illuminations are made by electric machin- 
ery at a central station. The office boy or janitor turns 
on the light by pushing a button. In the social life of 
Hanover every individual kept his own light trimmed 
and burning. There was the advantage which belongs 
to people of homogeneous stock, all inheriting the 
same traditions, all having the same fine and worthy 
aims, all leading the same sort of life, but every one 
doing his work in a characteristic, individual way. 
Some of the remarkable men described in the Mem- 

29 



ories and Anecdotes returned to Hanover at certain sea- 
sons to deliver courses of lectures. One of them was 
Dr. Benning Crosby v^ho had reached the front rank 
among the surgeons of New York when his life was 
cut short. In his professional visits he seldom needed 
to use any other medicine than the smile and the 
stories that he brought into the sick room. When a 
family needed to be cheered up he could convulse 
them by imitating and impersonating some local 
character who happened to be passing the house. If 
a dignified personage was approaching to make a call, 
Dr. Ben would depict in exact detail just what the 
visitor was about to do and say. And this was done in 
such a way, even in the presence of the victim, that 
no one could take offence. Other such visitors were 
the learned and golden-tongued Dr. Ordronaux and 
Dr. John Lord, the brilliant and eccentric lecturer 
on history. On academic occasions, and especially at 
commencement, there were many alumni who enjoyed 
coming back for a visit at Hanover — such men as 
" Uncle Sam." Taylor, of the Andover Phillips Acad- 
emy, in education; "Long John" Wentworth of 
Chicago among men of affairs; and General Noyes, 
Governor of Ohio and Minister to France, as a repre- 
sentative of public life. Men of this stamp coming in 
a vacation spirit and enjoying stimulating talks liked 
to meet together at Professor Sanborn's, on the vine- 
covered piazza, or in the big " study " which occupied 
a wing of the house, with domed ceiling and with 

30 




Fivni a ilaguerreotype 



PROFESSOR EDWIN D. SANBORN 



the old picture wall paper exhibiting scenes around 
the Bay of Naples. Their stories, rallies, monologues, 
and Homeric laughter were worthy of a classic setting. 
Miss Kate as a girl and a young woman was a wel- 
come listener at such times and contributed witty 
pictures of local characters and happenings as well as 
bright comments on current literature. 

Even during the long summer vacation interesting 
people came to Hanover. It was a tribute to the place 
as a summer resort that they continued to come in spite 
of the hardships and vicissitudes of life at Frary's Hotel. 
Among these summer visitors or residents were John 
E. Parsons, one of the acute leaders of the New York 
bar, and Mr. Hitchcock, proprietor of the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel. They sought recreation on the com- 
mon in front of the Sanborn House with Professor 
Young, the astronomer, who came from his studies 
of the celestial spheres to concentrate his mind on 
croquet balls. Other visitors who stirred the imagina- 
tions of young people at Hanover were the famous 
personages who came as orators or poets at commence- 
ment or as features of the Lecture Course. Of those 
who were entertained at her father's home. Miss San- 
born mentions Rufus Choate, Edward Everett, Frank- 
lin Pierce, Salmon P. Chase, Wendell Phillips, Dr. 
Holmes, Edward Everett Hale, President Eliot, James 
T. Fields, Charles Dudley Warner, Edwin P.Whipple, 
Walt Whitman, John G. Saxe, and Joachim Miller. 

In accounting for the remarkable men and women 

31 



sent out from rural New England about the middle 
of the nineteenth century it is necessary to consider 
all these three factors, of inheritance, environment, 
and the influences that filtered in from the outside 
world. It seems to be the general conclusion of his- 
torical writers that the greatest of these was inherit- 
ance. From secluded farms where there was almost 
no stimulus from without and very little chance for 
education, there came forth national figures of which 
Horace Greeley is an example. The Hanover region 
was favored in being a fairly fertile country along the 
Connecticut River, where the struggle for a liveli- 
hood was not too repressing, and in being the seat of 
two educational institutions, Dartmouth College and 
the Norwich Military Academy just across the river 
in Vermont. These attracted a supply of the material 
for successful careers, but the result seemed to be a 
fruition of long continued moral, physical, and intel- 
lectual forces. At a dinner of the New Hampshire 
Society in New York it was undertaken to show in a 
jocular way that men who had lived or were educated 
within twenty miles of the town pump on the Han- 
over Common had done more to influence the destiny 
of the American nation than those living or educated 
within the same radius of the City Hall in New York. 
In this David and Goliath competition the smaller 
champion at least was not annihilated. At the first 
great crisis, the mind of the nation was prepared to 
meet the onslaught of disunion by Daniel Webster. 

32 



When the Civil War, deferred to a more favorable 
time, at last broke out, the sinews of war were de- 
veloped by men from within the Hanover circle. The 
entire financial legislation of Congress from 1861 to 
1 865 might be said to be the work of Justin S. Morrill, 
a resident of Strafford, just across the Connecticut. The 
financing of bond issues and the control of the national 
treasury were under the charge of Salmon P. Chase, 
born near Hanover and graduated at Dartmouth. 
Thaddeus Stevens furnished the element of bitter and 
indomitable persistence. Both Dartmouth and the 
military school at Norwich supplied an extraordinary 
proportion of men to the active service; several of the 
Dartmouth men reaching the rank of brigadier- 
general. The honor roll of the Norwich University 
in the Civil War numbered over five hundred officers, 
of whose careers that of General Grenville M. Dodge 
was a noble example. To the navy the Norwich 
school furnished three rear-admirals, four commanders, 
and a host of other officers. 

When a crisis came in the foreign policy of the nation 
at the time of the Spanish War, Nelson Dingley filled 
the position which Morrill had occupied in 1861. 
When President McKinley wanted guidance on the 
momentous issues involved, he sent to Cuba Senator 
Redfield Proctor on whose judgment he relied and on 
whose report his decision was based. The man of action 
in that war. Admiral Dewey, though a graduate of the 
Naval Academy, received three years of his educa- 

33 



tion at Norwich. During the period from 1 894 to 1 899 
two successive governors of the State of New York 
had lived at Hanover — L. P. Morton, who began 
there his business career, and Frank S. Black a grad- 
uate of the college. Although most of the New 
Hampshire emigration tended toward Boston or the 
West, it happened at the period in question that the 
proprietor of the best known hotel in New York city- 
was a Hanover man. The editor of the leading news- 
paper was born in Hanover and educated at the 
college. Within recent years the district attorney, 
surrogate, and three judges of the Supreme Court had 
come from Dartmouth. In the medical profession 
men born within the Hanover pale and sons of the 
college were leaders in general medicine, in surgery, 
and in neurology. Two graduates and presidents of 
Dartmouth had been pastors of the most influential 
churches. Men of the same antecedents were at the 
front in engineering and in business affairs. 

It was one of many illustrations of the influence 
which went out from small communities when the 
New England stock after the middle of the century 
spread itself over the land, and it suggests the eager 
plans and hopes which must have filled the thought 
of young people in those communities. The opportu- 
nity for expansion was off'ered by the rapid extension 
of railroads, the building of factories, and the opening 
of new markets. The discovery of gold on the Pacific 
coast aggravated the Western fever, and was followed 

34 




From n daguerreotype 



MRS. E. D. SANBORN 



by the inspiring events of an Elizabethan age — wars 
and rumors of wars and a vast romance of discovery 
and settlement. 

It is easy to understand how the young men caught 
the fever and went out to make their fortunes ; but 
with the young women it was different. Horace 
Greeley's advice was Go West, young man ! There 
was no reason why an independent career for young 
women should occur to him. A man's sphere was the 
round world, but a woman's sphere was in the home. 
It was the rule of formal tradition that a woman must 
not intrude upon any field of work which men had 
preoccupied, particularly if any publicity was involved. 
The rigid rules of the Puritan regime were enforced 
by an almost ferocious public sentiment. Wendell 
Phillips is sometimes quoted as saying that the Puri- 
tan hell would be a place where every one had to 
mind his own business. A minister's wife after a 
perturbed pastorate in a village of Western Massa- 
chusetts, described the place as having the quiet of 
the grave, without its peace. This less amiable feature 
of rural life made it almost impossible to do anything 
out of the ordinary. Cards and dancing were not only 
inventions of the Devil, but any one who counten- 
anced them was thought to be going to their inventor. 
Of this Miss Sanborn wrote in the chapter on Bygones : 
" Students were forbidden to play cards, and the en- 
joyable games of whist or euchre or cribbage were 
also forbidden in the homes of the faculty. But the 

35 



boys played on the sly. Once the inspector, with an- 
other teacher, entered a room suddenly where a quiet 
game was progressing. Lights went out as suddenly as 
the door had opened ; there was a shuffling and a 
scuffling, and all was still. The culprits were dragged 
forth from various retreats. A negro had hidden under 
the bed. * He need not have done that,' said Professor 
Putnam, * he had only to keep dark.' " 

An estimable French lady w^ho came to Hanover 
upon some religious or charitable mission lost her 
influence and almost her reputation by tossing a rub- 
ber ball to her little boy on the Sabbath day. To quote 
from the Meiiiories : " On the Lord's Day children 
were not allowed to read the Touth's Co?npanion or to 
pluck a flower in the garden. Life then was a solemn 
business at Hanover ; a yearly concert at commence- 
ment and typhoid fever in the fall." 

In spite of difficulties in the way. Miss Sanborn even 
as a young girl was inspired by the spirit of the times 
and made up her mind, as the phrase was, to get out 
and do something. The principal avenues not entirely 
closed to young women were in teaching and literary 
work ; and she felt that her unusual advantages in 
education might be put to practical use in those 
directions. She had begun the study of Latin at the 
age of eight years, and under the tutelage of her 
father and his associates had followed closely the 
courses of study in school and college. She had been 
"finished" in music at Andover and in elocution and 

36 







A SILHOUETTE OF DANIEL WEBSTER 

By Edouard, the French silhouettist who came to America in 1840 and made silhouettes 

of several thousand persons among them Mr. Webster and his nieces 



other branches at Boston. The circumstances of her 
early training were well described in one of the news- 
paper reviews of her life work : 

" Kate Sanborn was born to write. The atmosphere 
of her youth was literary to the core, and she seized 
upon the advantages of her surroundings naturally and 
with conspicuous eagerness, avidity, and adaptability." 

There was also truth in the remark of another re- " 
viev^^er that " She was educated in that inspired and 
casual way so frequent in earlier times." Such methods 
were characteristic of the period, and as expressed by 
a writer in the Providence 'Journal^ ** Kate Sanborn 
was one of a group of American women whose clever- 
ness and individuality seem to have belonged particu- 
larly to a certain period." The striking feature of 
Miss Sanborn's training was that, before the day of 
systematic education for women, she adapted herself 
to conditions as they were, making the utmost of her 
advantages and finding ways to overcome the disad- 
vantages. In fact she may be said to have been largely 
self-educated in the sense of seeking out the sources 
of education and acquiring the taste for books. In 
later life she wrote half a dozen brief common-sense ' 
essays on such subjects as Tact as a Virtue^ The Art of 
Making Gifts, Fashion and How Far to Follow It, and 
Making Friends of Books. They were published by the 
Society of Christian Endeavor. In the essay last named 
she said : " Those old authors were my best friends. 
In fact, they made my fortune. I go to books when 

37 



tired or nervous, and they rest and cheer me ; when 
worried and anxious, and cares are forgotten ; when I 
am ill or suffering, they do me as much good as the 
doctor. They are always the same, never capricious, 
never * hurt,' never censorious, never find fault, or gos- 
sip ; and between the covers of the right kind of books 
you will find the sure road to success. Select a subject, 
and stick to it, making friends of all the books on that 
theme; then use the knowledge with enthusiasm and 
tact, and your success is certain." 

Miss Sanborn had made her first venture as an author 
when a girl in short frocks, eleven years of age ; hav- 
ing written some bright little stories which were pub- 
lished and paid for. She began her work as a teacher 
while still in her 'teens, opening a school in a long 
room in the ell of her father's house, over the wood 
shed. Here she gathered a few children and made the 
work of learning so interesting that the number in- 
creased to nearly fifty. It was in 1859 when she was 
twenty years old that her father was called to the 
Washington University at St. Louis and she was offered 
the opportunity of teaching classes of girls in the In- 
stitute connected with the University. 

Returning to Hanover four years later. Miss Kate 
looked about for other opportunities in writing and 
teaching. A firm of Boston publishers had started a 
weekly paper for young people called the Touth s 
Companion. Thinking it a venture rather beneath their 
own dignity, they placed at the head of the paper the 

38 



name Perry Mason & Co., an entirely imaginary 
firm of publishers. The ToiitH s Companion became a 
great success and offered good rewards for contribu- 
tions. Through the friendly offices of Elizabeth Stuart 
Phelps, Miss Sanborn began to write for the Companion. 
Her first story for the children was about a young 
black and tan dog at home which had taken over the 
name of Rab. The dog was a character, and his biog- 
rapher drew a vivid picture of his mischief, faithful 
friendship and singular adventures. The children en- 
joyed reading of funny or lovable traits that they had 
noticed unconsciously in their own pets, but had per- 
haps never spoken of or put into words. They felt as 
if it were a story of their own experience. Next Miss 
Sanborn found material in the activities of her brother 
and his friends, all about ten years old. They ran home 
in a great fright after seeing a strange monster in the 
middle of the river. It stayed near one place, but 
would rear up its head in an awful way and then dive 
down. It had long hair and " ears that kept a-floppin'." 
This beast proved to be a water-soaked log, one end 
of which had sunk to the bottom while the upper 
end, upon which drifting weeds and rubbish had 
lodged, bobbed up and down in the current. The boys 
finding that their swimming hole was becoming shal- 
low went down below, around a bend, to build a dam. 
When their backs were well blistered by the sun, 
they went after their shirts, to find that the cows in 
the pasture attracted probably by the starch in those 

39 



garments, had chewed them to a pulp. They held an 
indignation meeting and proceeded to the house of 
the owner of the pasture. They set forth the facts of 
the outrage and held up some strings of front buttons 
which were all that was left of the shirts. 

"And now what are you going to do about it?" 

" Dew abaout it ? Nawthin' ! " 

To be doing nothing is a condition that never applied 
to Miss Sanborn. Her mind was always full of new 
plans and of ideas suggested by books or by progres- 
sive people. While making use of every opportunity 
for writing she taught classes of young women at Til- 
den Seminary in an adjoining town and her experience 
here decided her to look for broader work in the lec- 
ture field. The Lyceum was a power in education 
which brought all the oratorical Mahomets of the 
country to the mountains of New England. They 
were to be envied for their influence and reputation 
as well as for the agreeable reaction on their pockets. 
Dr. Chapin used to say that he valued the fame de- 
rived from lecturing, F-A-M-E standing for Fifty 
And My Expenses. Dr. Holmes, as Miss Sanborn re- 
ports, having given one of his charming lectures in 
the missionary spirit at a small place, where no amount 
had been agreed upon, his charges were discussed with 
the Lecture Committee. " We had calkerlated," said 
the spokesman, " to make it five dollars ; but it wa'n*t 
exackly what we expected, and we have conclooded 
that tew-fifty would be abaout right !" 

40 



Women were barred from the lecture field by reason 
of its publicity, though a few like Mrs. Livermore 
by reason of patriotic service during the war were 
allowed special consideration. Miss Sanborn had given 
to the girls at Tilden Seminary a series of talks on the 
English poets which were published in 1868 by the 
Appletons and attracted attention by their novel style. 
As the poet Whittier wrote to the author, " Its racy, 
colloquial style enlivened by anecdote and citation, 
makes it anything but a dull book." Mr. Whittier 
also commended its analysis of character and estimates 
of literary merit. Home Pictures of E?iglish Poets was 
passed upon favorably, as to its educational value, for 
use as a text book in the schools of New York city, 
but its acceptance was blocked by comments on relig- 
ions and races that were natural in rural New England 
but not so well suited to cosmopolitan New York. 
The success of her talks on literary topics emboldened 
Miss Sanborn to deliver lectures outside of academic 
walls. Such a venture was considered unwomanly, and 
Miss Sanborn records that her father, who was not 
generally emotional, was moved to tears by severe 
words of rebuke and criticism. The interest, charm, 
and wit of the lectures attracted crowded houses, with 
chairs in the aisles and people sitting on the window 
sills. Influential friends were found all over New Eng- 
land who sent invitations to the young lecturer. The 
governor of Vermont invited her to his home town. 
When at Concord, N. H., she was asked by Dr. Ban- 

41 



croft to entertain the inmates of the State Lunatic 
Asylum. Another (former) state governor now con- 
fined in the asylum shook hands with her heartily 
after the lecture and assured her that it was "just about 
right for us lunatics." It was a good test of Miss San- 
born's humor that she never missed an opportunity 
of telling jokes at her own expense. 

Having done so well near home, Miss Sanborn made 
up her mind to seek a broader field. She found a place 
as teacher in one of the well-known schools for girls 
in New York, soon making a reputation that brought 
her an invitation to teach at the Packer Institute in 
Brooklyn. Here she won the friendship of Anne 
Lynch, afterwards Mrs. Botta, through whom she was 
admitted to the acquaintance and sincere regard of a 
host of interesting and distinguished people, and had 
now attained all that she asked for, an ample opportu- 
nity. 

In her early ventures from Hanover and while mak- 
ing her way in New York, Miss Sanborn was still 
aided by her home associations, especially by the loving 
encouragement of her sister Mary (Mrs. Paul Bab- 
cock) and of her grandmother, Mrs. Ezekiel Webster. 
To speak of a New England woman of the earlier 
times as faultless in character might suggest the idea 
of prim severity or of traits more to be admired than 
loved. But when the New England type came to its 
maturity in a broader and more happy life, there were 
developed among the women in many households, 

42 




A HOME-MADE SILHOUETTE TRACED FROM SHADOW PlfTrRE 



characters as nearly perfect as could well be asked for 
in human nature. Mrs. Webster was born with the 
nineteenth century and lived to her ninety-sixth year, 
or almost to the century's end. After the sudden death 
of her husband in 1829 she never remarried, always 
cherishing the feeling that " she would rather be the 
widow of Ezekiel Webster than the wife of any other 
man." When Miss Sanborn's mother died in 1864 
Mrs. Webster took the place of a mother and remained 
in the household until Miss Kate had gone to New 
York. If any conceivable grace or charm of mind or 
person or character was missing in " Grandma Web- 
ster," her devoted friends never noticed the omission. 
Her slight and frail presence was a tower of strength, 
for into the daily life of shifting scenes and pressing 
cares it brought a vision of something real and endur- 
ing. Yet she was no colorless saint, but was full of 
alert, practical human interest in the things of every- 
day life. Mrs. Webster was an expert in backgammon 
and other games and " as eager to win as a child." 
Up to the very end of her long life she was the most 
delightful of companions, and as Miss Sanborn wrote 
of her, " her life is still a stimulus, an inspiration, a 
benediction." Her serene spirit and wise encourage- 
ment were a never-failing help to Miss Kate as long 
as she remained at home. 

Miss Sanborn's sister Mary, six years younger than 
herself, was a contrast in appearance and temperament. 
She inherited the dark hair and complexion of the 

43 



Batchelders and a calm unruffled disposition. When 
the sisters were little children there lived in their home 
a character known as " Old Henry " who had offici- 
ated for years as hired man upon the farm of Professor 
Sanborn's father. Miss Kate used to delight to recall 
his comment that "Mary never made him no trouble, 
but Kate was a 'tarnal torment." While they had 
many traits in common, there were also qualities that 
were in a fortunate way complementary. The fact 
that her sister Mary (Mrs. Babcock) upon her mar- 
riage removed to New York, had a great influence 
on Miss Sanborn's career. It opened a home for her 
there and furnished invaluable encouragement. All 
might be said of Mrs. Babcock that has been said of 
Mrs. Webster, who became a frequent visitor at the 
Babcock home. They were both ideal friends and 
helpers, loving a laugh, thinking of everything but 
themselves and intensely interested in everything 
worthy of their interest. Mrs. Babcock had received 
much the same educational training as her sister and 
believed like her in making friends of books. She en- 
joyed turning off witty and graceful verses and her 
serious writing was a model of clear, direct, vigorous 
English. Her character was of a kind that met every 
test of trial and affliction. She lost her children, one 
after another, and then her beloved husband. In her 
later years she became detached from many interests 
by serious deafness. Yet by force of character she fixed 
her mind on sensible and useful interests and followed 

44 




From a later ditguerreotype 



MISS SANBORN'S MOTHER 



them with the enthusiasm of a girl. A season like 
Christmas which might naturally be a time for having 
the blues, she made the culminating event of her year. 
As Christmas came on, her home became piled with 
packages which would carry to friends and especially 
to those who needed remembrance, a reminder of her 
never-failing smile of hearty greeting. A glimpse of 
Miss Kate's reliance on the strong and loyal support 
of her sister appears in the account of her first lecture 
in New York: 

" Through the kind suggestions of Mrs. Botta, I 
was asked to give talks on literary matters at the house 
of one of New York's most influential citizens. This 
I enjoyed immensely. Soon the large drawing-rooms 
were too small for the numbers who came. Next we 
went to the Young Women's Christian Association, 
to the library there, and later I decided to engage the 
church parlors in Doctor Howard Crosby's church. 
" On the day for my first lecture the rain poured 
down, and I felt sure of a failure. My sister went with 
me to the church. As we drew near I noticed a string 
of carriages up and down the avenue. * There must 
be a wedding or a funeral,' I whispered, feeling more 
in the mood of the latter, but never dreaming how 
much those carriages meant to me. As I went timidly 
into the room I found nearly every seat full, and was 
greeted with cordial applause. My sister took a seat 
beside me. My subject was Spinster Authors of England. 
My hands trembled so visibly that I laid my manu- 

45 



script on the table, but after getting in magnetic touch 
with those before me, I did not mind. The reporters 
whom I found sharpening their pencils expectantly, 
gave correct and complimentary notices and my suc- 
cess was now assured." 

The following outline of Miss Sanborn's life, partic- 
ularly after she had made a place for herself in New 
York, is taken from the Boston Transcript of July 
9, 1917: 

Miss Sanborn's education was remarkably broad and 
thorough for a girl of that time. While little more than a 
girl she began educational work herself, teaching at several 
schools in New York and at the Packer Institute in Brook- 
lyn. She was invited to pass a winter in the home of Mrs. 
Vincenzo Botta of New York, who gathered around her 
table and at her "Saturday evenings" the most distinguished 
men and women of the day. Here Miss Sanborn attracted 
friendships by her keen wit, vivacity and originality, and 
began to form an acquaintance with interesting people which 
widened throughout her life. 

It was through the influence of Mrs. Botta that she became 
a pioneer among women in the lecture field. She hit upon 
attractive titles for her lectures, such as Spinster Authors of 
England^ Bachelor Authors in Types, Literary Gossips, Are 
Women Witty? , Tortures from Terrific Talkers, Unintentional 
Nonsense, The Perils and Benefits of Egotism, and Our Early 
Newspaper Wits. Miss Sanborn had the rare gift of getting 
at the gist of a subject as well as of condensing her material. 
Her style was both graceful and effective and always 
brightened by her sense of humor. The success of her 
lectures and of her classes in current literature was also 
due to her fine, magnetic presence and to the charm of her 
well-trained voice. 

In 1880 Miss Sanborn was invited to Smith College as 
professor of English literature, a position which she filled 

46 








ia««*iiWS»S»i*«- * - I--*a.feTU.3«M.-^ 



PROFESSOR SANBORN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTY 



for three years, made additionally busy by lecturing and 
literary work. After leaving Smith College she made a 
lecturing tour through the Middle West. Following a break- 
down in health she became interested in an old farm at 
Metcalf, Mass., about 25 miles from Boston. After several 
years of outdoor life she told her experiences in Adopting 
an Abandoned Farm, a book which had a large sale and took 
its place among American works of humor. Later she re- 
moved to another farm nearby which became her permanent 
summer home. 

In spite of infirmities which would have depressed most 
people, Miss Sanborn devoted herself with never-failing 
energy and enthusiasm to beautifying the place, to practical 
farming and housekeeping, to congenial literary work and 
to the entertainment of friends. Her controlling impulse 
seemed to be the wish to be of service to those about her, 
especially to those who most needed help. 

During her Hfe on the farm Miss Sanborn wrote a number 
of books upon subjects which especially interested her — 
The Wit of Women, Old Time Wall Papers and My Literary 
Zoo. She became interested in the statues of Indians once 
so commonly used as the signs of tobacconists, and issued 
an illustrated booklet under the title Hunting Indians with 
a Taxicah. She was always an appreciative friend of dogs, 
and in the last year of her Hfe brought out a handsomely 
illustrated book entitled Educated Dogs of To-day. In 191 5 
Miss Sanborn collected her reminiscences of interesting 
persons, under the title Memories and Anecdotes. Though 
her strength at that time hardly permitted careful arrange- 
ment or revision, the book sketched an unusual and in- 
spiring career and presented vivid pen pictures of such men 
as Emerson, Beecher, Greeley, Mark Twain, John Hay, 
James T. Fields, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Wendell 
Phillips, Walt Whitman and WiUiam Cullen Bryant; and 
of such women as Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Hosmer, 
Mary A. Livermore and Frances Willard. 

Miss Sanborn's talent for presenting compact information 
in attractive form appears in her little volume A Truthful 

47 



Woman in Southern California^ that State being a region for 
which she felt strong attachment. A favorite diversion was 
the making up of calendars, several of which were books of 
permanent value, containing selections on special subjects, 
chosen with critical judgment from a wide variety of authors. 
Miss Sanborn was repaid for this work by the letters con- 
stantly received from grateful readers of the Indian Summer 
Calendar (selections on the Indian summer of life) and of The 
Starlight Calendar^ on the faith in immortality. In fact few 
persons have so large a personal correspondence. The ladies 
who had been her pupils at the Packer Institute and at 
Smith College formed of themselves a large group of life- 
long friends who never missed an opportunity of showing 
their appreciation and attachment. 

Miss Sanborn truly believed that in one's relations to life 
the mere passing of years has little to do with age. In her 
later years she again took up her residence in New York, 
but returned to the farm in summer. On the day before she 
was stricken with fatal illness she was never more animated 
or full of the enjoyment of life and of energetic plans for 
the future. One of her last acts was to administer a bracing 
talk to a caller who came in a despondent mood and com- 
plained that he had nothing to live for. Kate Sanborn had 
reached age but could never have become a victim of old 
age. When nearly unconscious she repeated what a friend 
had written in a recent letter — Be as young as you always 
have been. 

The features of special interest in Miss Sanborn's 
career as outlined in the Transcript have been more 
fully pictured in her Memories. It has been remarked 
by more than one of those who knew her intimately 
that she had a wonderful life. Amelia E. Barr wrote 
to her : " I think you have been a fortunate woman, 
and, * it sounds like stories from the land of spirits if 
any man obtains that which he merits.' " It was a re- 

48 



markable experience for a young woman coming from 
her quiet country home to receive so rapid recognition; 
to be offered a place in a school of the highest rank ; 
to make an immediate success of large classes in cur- 
rent literary topics ; to be invited for the classes and 
for lectures to such homes as those of Dr. J. G. Hol- 
land and President Barnard of Columbia ; to attract 
crowded audiences of the " best people " at public 
lectures ; to succeed Mark Twain in conducting the 
humorous department of a leading magazine ; to be 
chosen as instructor in English literature at Smith 
College ; to make a tour of lecturing through the 
West which was literally a series of ovations ; to be 
able to retire to an ideal life upon a New England farm 
and to enjoy a long Indian summer in congenial liter- 
ary work and in the entertainment of interesting 
guests. In the tribute in the Transcript from which 
citations have been made. Miss Sanborn was described 
as teacher, author, lecturer, humorist, optimist, and 
advocate of country living. No doubt it was a natural 
result of Miss Sanborn's marked individuality and her 
impatience of narrow and formal methods that she 
became a pioneer in her several interests. This was 
especially true of her methods as a teacher. In the 
Brooklyn Eagle of July 15, 1917, there was an appre- 
ciative notice, occupying several columns, from the 
pen of a critical writer who was familiar with her 
work at the Packer Institute. He says: 
" Very early Miss Sanborn chose teaching for her 

49 



profession. She seems to have been a born teacher, an 
unconscious teacher if the records of her experience 
at Packer are to be taken as a criterion of her expe- 
rience elsewhere. Ahhough Miss Sanborn in her naive 
account of her examination for the position at Packer 
seemed not to realize it, she doubtless established a 
new method of teaching which has been followed at 
Packer with such signal success ever since the day of 
her ordeal half a century ago. Miss Sanborn was a 
pioneer among women lecturers, and her experiences 
as given in her last book. Memories and Anecdotes — 
an autographic copy of which Miss Sanborn presented 
to Packer recently — are witty in the extreme, and so 
vivid are her character sketches of those she met in 
her lecture experiences that one seems personally to 
know the friends of the author and to have traveled 
with her far afield. The author-lecturer seemed to 
have a peculiar ability for getting at the bottom facts 
or hitting the nail on the head, and with all her clear 
thinking there was always the leaven of mirth that 
lifted the plainest statement of facts into the realm of 
good literature. Miss Sanborn may also be credited as 
being first in the field of talks upon current literature 
or topical talks. For years before this popular way of 
imparting facts to other women came into fashion 
under the name of current events classes, Miss Sanborn 
was in effect doing the very thing that now occupies 
cultured women everywhere. Horace Greeley and 
Henry Ward Beecher were among the friends and asso- 

50 




MRS. EZKK.1EL WEBSTER 



ciates of Miss Sanborn and it is doubtful if she received 
more mental nourishment from them than she impart- 
ed — for those of Brooklyn who still remember her 
say that she was never dull, and still so fine was her 
sense of proportion and of fitness of things that she 
never for all her cleverness became pedantic or seemed 
aught than a delightful comrade, ready to give her best 
for those who needed her gifts of heart or head. She 
was for the full allotted span associated with educa- 
tion, and was successful in the highest degree as a 
maker of books, a lecturer, and teacher." 

Miss Sanborn herself gives some glimpses of her 
freedom from what she described as ** teachery " 
formality. " It was a great opportunity to help young 
girls to read in such a way that it would be a pleasure 
to their home friends, or to recite naturally in com- 
pany as was then common. We gave an exhibition of 
what they could do in reading and recitation, and the 
chapel was crowded to the doors. I offered to give in 
my classes lessons in * How to tell a story ' with ease, 
brevity, and point, promising in every case to give an 
anecdote of my own suggested by theirs. This pleased 
them, and we had a jolly time. The first girl who was 
called upon told a story of her grandfather who was 
very deaf. * You may have seen him sitting on the pulpit 
stairs of Mr. Beecher's church holding to his ear what 
looks like a skillet. Once when wakened in the middle 
of the night he went down stairs and cautiously opened 
the kitchen door. He reached out his skillet trumpet 

51 



before him at the partly opened door, and the milk- 
man poured in a quart of milk.' The girl was ap- 
plauded and deserved it. Then they asked me for a milk 
story. I told them of a milkman who in answer to a 
young mother who complained that the milk he 
brought for her baby was sour, replied : * Well, is there 
anything outside of the sourness that doesn't suit you ?' 

" We had many visitors interested in the work of 
the various classes. One day Beecher strolled into the 
chapel and wished to hear some of the girls read. 
All were ready. One took the morning paper ; another 
recited a poem ; one read a selection from her scrap- 
book. Beecher afterward inquired : * Whom have you 
got to teach elocution now ? You used to have a few 
prize pumpkins on show, but now every girl is doing 
good original work.' " 

At Smith College Miss Sanborn applied to the higher 
education the same purpose by which she had inspired 
her younger pupils — to interest the student, to teach 
her to think for herself and to gain ideas that should 
make life more worth the living. " I used no special 
text book while at Smith College, and requested my 
class to question me for ten minutes at the close of 
every recitation. Each girl brought a commonplace 
book to the recitation room to take notes as I talked. 
Some of them showed great power of expression while 
writing on the themes provided. There was a monthly 
examination, often largely attended by friends from 
out of town." 




•>•=:' ■i'-''"m.- 



MRS. MARY SANBORN BABCOCK 



Dr. L. Clarke Seelye, who was then and for many- 
years the President of Smith College, in writing of 
Miss Sanborn's service says : " She was a stimulating 
and original teacher and a delightful companion." One 
of her Northampton friends, writing in the Hamp- 
shire Gazette of July 19th, expresses the same ideas 
more fully : " With the death of Kate Sanborn on 
July 9th, one of the most striking personalities of that 
little group of sincere workers who comprised the 
faculty of Smith College during its early days passed 
away. Kate Sanborn, working by her own methods, 
inspired her pupils with her own enthusiasm for Eng- 
lish literature, so stimulating their curiosity and direct- 
ing its gratification that many of them have borne 
testimony to a life-long appreciation of the best books 
that they owed to her. She was always a leader rather 
than a taskmaster, and her success as a teacher was 
due no less to her intimate knowledge of literature than 
to her own winning charm, her quick wit, and her 
force of character." One of her former pupils wrote 
to her not long ago, " You did more for me than any 
teacher I had at Smith, for you kindled my imagin- 
ation and knocked out of me some New England 
conventionalities." Another lady who when a student 
in the college assisted Miss Sanborn in some of her 
literary work, and is especially qualified to express the 
feeling of her pupils, has written recently : 

" To me she was most inspiring. She not only made 
her own subject interesting, but she related it to many 

53 



other subjects. Many vistas she opened for me for 
which I shall ever be grateful. Her enthusiasm, her 
keen sense of humor, her unexpected turns of ex- 
pression, and her freedom from conventional methods 
of teaching did much to unlock my reserved New 
England temperament. In short, I gained from her 
more that has proved of real value to me than from 
any teacher I ever had." 

While at Northampton Miss Sanborn devised her 
"Round Table" series of literature lessons which is 
evidence of the thorough and systematic qualities of 
her scholarship. In the form of charts she condensed 
an immense fund of instructive information applying 
to each of twenty-five periods in English literature, 
accompanied by suggestions for study of the period, 
lists of special readings, subjects for essays, character- 
izations of each author and of each school, choice 
quotations and notes of important events. As one critic 
said, " It shows marvellous power of concentration and 
monumental drudgery." These literature lessons, 
which have been out of print, are to be republished 
by an educator who was impressed with their value 
and will be made permanently useful. 

In the delivery of her lectures Miss Sanborn's person- 
ality played as important a part as in her teaching. She 
was regarded with admiration and affection by her 
women contemporaries who were active in literary or 
other work, and vivid pictures of Miss Sanborn as a 
lecturer are found in letters written by those ladies. 

54 




MISS SANBORN WHILK A TEACHER AT SMIIH COLLEllE 



Mrs. Abba Goold Woolson wrote : " Miss Sanborn's 
lectures are a delight to her listeners; and that she 
enjoys them herself no one can doubt who watches 
the bright, animated face and sparkling eyes with 
which she communicates her thoughts, and which 
serve to give an added meaning and piquancy to her 
wit. She deals with literary topics that are out of the 
common course, and her style of treatment is always 
fresh and original. Solid information there is in 
abundance, but it is enlivened by sudden flashes of wit, 
and a pervading atmosphere of good humor and good 
sense. Her enunciation is something admirable; the 
tones are pure, the words clear-cut, even to the last 
consonant, and uttered with ease and naturalness." 

Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton wrote of Miss San- 
born's lectures in Boston : " She has a charming pres- 
ence; a voice rich, sweet, and exquisitely modulated, 
and the very unusual power of imparting alike the 
utmost expression to pathos, and the keenest point to 
an epigram. The first lecture to which I listened — 
The Pets of Great Men — delighted me by its freshness 
and brightness ; but the second — Vanity and Insanity y 
the Shadows of Genius — held me absorbed in a yet deeper 
interest. The wealth of illustration which enriched 
these lectures was marvellous. The weaknesses of the 
great men were touched so piquantly, yet so tenderly, 
and the tragedies that darkened their lives were dwelt 
upon so reverently and so sympathetically, that one was 
constantly compelled to the closest sympathy." 

55 



In looking back upon Miss Sanborn's work as an 
author, one is struck by her versatility and her wide 
range of interests. She wrote educational works upon 
literature, a book of travel and observation in Southern 
California, a volume upon old-time wall papers, a 
psychological study entitled The Vanity and Insanity 
of Genius, practical and humorous books upon farm 
life, and a study of the educational capacity of dogs. 
All these varied themes were subjects in which the 
author felt an intense interest, and her literary work 
in every case was the expression of her animated and 
inspiring nature. As was said by "The Nomad" of the 
Boston Transcript: " Those who read her very own 
books read the woman and found her a well of sun- 
shine that no disappointment or sickness or sorrow 
could permanently darken." 

A large number of the press notices which appeared 
after Miss Sanborn's death recognized the serious value 
of her writings upon farm life. An article in the New 
Haven Register of July iith, under the title A 
New England Humorist , speaks of her as " a pioneer 
in the *back to the farm' movement which of late years 
has taken so firm a hold upon the people of this 
country. Undoubtedly Kate Sanborn's Adopting an 
Abandoned Far?n, aside from its humorous qualities, 
did more to turn the attention of New England people 
to the possibilities of escape from the rush and bustle 
of the cities than any other book published at the 
time. The book has taken its place among the stand- 

56 



ard works of American humor." Under the title A 
Literary Fanner^ the Tribune of Providence, Rhode 
Island, of July i 2th says: " It is many years since the 
publication of that absorbingly interesting book, 
Adopting an Abandoned Farm^ but its author lived 
long enough to see a full realization of its object — and 
many a demonstration of the fact that women, even 
literary women, can make farming pay and retain 
their self-respect. It is reasonable to think that she 
derived less satisfaction from her success in strictly 
literary endeavor than from seeing her ideas of farming 
adopted and practised by many American women." 
In the Philadelphia Public Ledger it was remarked 
that "Many followed her example in seeking out old 
places and turning them into homes fit to live in. The 
movement was a beneficial one in all respects, and it 
helped to engender a taste for country life which has 
been an important factor in the present efforts to in- 
crease the store of food." 

Here is an example of Miss Sanborn's serious and 
sensible advice : 

"I want now to talk seriously about farming as a 
paying and satisfactory business for women. I notice in 
papers and magazines amateurish, optimistic articles 
on this theme which have had a false and dangerous 
influence upon the piteous army of impecunious and 
unemployed women who are eagerly looking for 
something to do and some practical method of self- 
support. These articles speak of ' dairying ' as pleasant 

57 



and profitable; poultry, mushrooms, violets, market 
gardening, etc. — treating all in an airy, fairy fashion 
that shows little intimacy with the truth of it. 

"To begin with, dairying is not a business that can 
well be carried on by women. As an honest farmer 
said to me: *I wouldn't bother with too many cows. 
They're alius a-goin' out or a-comin' in, or a-dryin' 
up, or farrar or chokin' themselves, or losin' their cud, 
or gettin' out o' paster, or may be inclined to hookin', 
and they die easy, though they look tough.' 

" No desirable man can be hired for small wages, 
and valuable cows range in price from fifty to three 
hundred dollars. One must have capital to commence. 
It is hard to find a market, at least a paying market, 
for milk; harder to collect the money. 

**The romantic word pictures in novels of rosy milk- 
maids, snowy arms, dimpled elbows, pretty white 
aprons, golden butter, yellow cream, red lips, cool, 
shaded dairy, rows of shining, well-filled pans, are 
attractive, but the reality is vastly different — at least 
in Metcalf ! 

"For those who seriously contemplate cows as an easy 
means of support, I would suggest that they first try 
to lead two frisky, frightened calves from the pasture 
to the barn when a sudden thunder-storm is on and 
your so-called * help ' has not returned from Rumford, 
and the nine cows are vociferously entreating some one 
to do the milking. I have known that experience. Or 
to churn on some hot, * rnuggy ' morning, when the 

58 




MISS SANBORN AFTER BEGINNING HER ACTIVE LIFE 
AS TEACHER AND LECTURER 



butter won't * come ' in three, or five, or seven min- 
utes, as usual ; and with weary arms on you go, turn- 
itty-turn, chunk-atty-chunk, round and round, round 
and round, trying in vain a pinch of salt, a little bit of 
warm water, a small piece of ice, etc., and at last to 
set the contents of the churn down cellar for a 
few hours, then boil it, let it cool, and finally give it 
to the hens. That also I have endured. The hens like 
it, but hardly appreciate my efforts. Dairying is one 
perpetual job, and one needs to be a Job to master it. 

" Then, poultry farming is a life study, a profound 
art. Nine-tenths lose and give up who attempt it. If 
I should circumstantially describe the history of my 
four hundred fall chickens you would better realize 
the myriad difficulties in this direction. 

" I can not advise any woman to go into farming or 
poultry or dairy business, unless she has a certain in- 
come and is willing to work hard and endure much. 
She must war eternally with insects, animals, and birds, 
and expect imposition on every hand. There are com- 
pensations which almost balance these hostile forces, 
but they will only be found by the genuine lover of 
country life. 

" I ask most thoughtfully, can nothing be done to 
make the farmers' wives of the next generation a little 
— no, a great deal— more happy, and to prevent the 
causes of such overwork?" 

From this Miss Sanborn went on to practical advice 
and constructive suggestions for women looking for- 

59 



ward to a country life; and to thoughtful ideas for the 
betterment of farm life, particularly from the point 
of view of farmers' wives and daughters. Her corre- 
spondence on the subject continued to be large for 
many years. 

There was nothing in the resources of her country 
home which Miss Sanborn valued more than the 
opportunity which it gave for entertaining her friends. 
She not only invited friends for a day or a week-end, 
but often entertained clubs and groups, such as the 
Boston Authors Club, and the Club of New Hampshire 
Women, and associations of teachers. She several times 
invited all the people of the neighborhood to come 
to her home to make or renew their acquaintance 
with her and to see and discuss what she had been able 
to do in restoring an abandoned farm. Mr. A. E. 
Winship, editor of the Journal of Education, wrote of 
these affairs: 

"But that which endeared her to her friends more 
than perhaps anything else were her * occasions ' at 
the abandoned farm, where one met noted people 
whom he never would have met elsewhere. Those 
were always ^Occasions' with a big O. Fun, such fun 
as we could have nowhere else, and big men and 
women became frisky children for the day." 

Miss Sanborn always believed in saying encouraging 
and appreciative things to others, and she frankly en- 
joyed appreciation herself. In Abandoning an Adopted 



60 



Farm she quotes several " bread and butter " letters 
from noted men in Boston. 

" It was a great day. I enjoyed it hugely. I gave up 
my choice of three great banquets, but I would not 
have missed your luxurious lark for three times three 
times those ordinary hotel spreads. In this busy life it 
is not everything that sticks, but your day will abide 
as a story for my children's children." 

And from another letter : 

" I never had so good a time in all my life before. 
Never did nine consecutive hours go so swiftly and 
delightfully. Everything was perfect. Weather made 
to order. Every detail was carried out. Your farm was 
fairyland. Alhambra, a little touch of Venice, all com- 
bined; every stone so immaculate; the old barn so trim 
and tidy; the narrow sidewalk so prim; the decorated 
grounds, with stacks of hay-rakes and strings of lan- 
terns, so bewitchingly attractive ; those sheaves of 
ripened grain ; the teeter, the * room for two,' the 
lake so neatly stoned up all round, the triumphal arch, 
the dinner, the whole thing absolutely delightful 
and unrepeatable — once only in a lifetime." 

Of nature study. Miss Sanborn wrote : 

"I cannot write scientifically or in long, detailed 
observations of the habits and manners of birds ; could 
never spend a whole afternoon lying on a hill con- 
cealed by bushes and armed with an opera glass, and 
then report accurately all I saw. Life is too short for 
me to care to learn the languages of birds or monkeys, 

6i 



or carry a phonograph into the henyards. But I love 
birds and value their friendship. I even aspire to a nest 
for myself in one of the gigantic twin elms that meet 
over the northern driveway. There, on an aerial plat- 
form, embowered and shaded, with cool breezes to 
refresh and exhilarate, I may yet have a * high tea ' 
for a few favored friends. I do not object to the theory 
of arboreal ancestry, and only wish I had not lost the 
art of climbing .... 

" Yes, it is summer now. The birds tell me that, 
and the trees they love to live in. I am glad to say 
that my new farm, with its brooks and groves and 
large solitary trees, is a paradise for birds. They seem 
to have a sense of proprietorship. In the great droop- 
ing elm just south of the house there is a colony of 
nests. I see the Baltimore oriole below, and above the 
golden-winged woodpecker. The quick flash of their 
wings and their loud, cheery call contrast charmingly 
with the quiet-flitting and rich, low notes of the bril- 
liant * hang-bird.' There is a long, dead limb of the 
same tree, honey-combed by woodpeckers of the past, 
now the abode of a tribe of tree swallows. They too 
have adopted an abandoned home, and in still evenings 
they twitter and circle about in the enthusiasm of 
entomological research ; not so bold and sweeping in 
their flight as their cousins and neighbors who prefer 
my chimneys, and spoil my newly painted fireplaces 
with dropping soot and broken eggs. 

" In a large hollow of the old elm there was a nest 

62 



of little owls. I have seen several fly-catchers in a pear 
tree near the brook. May they be blessed with large 
appetites ! And the robins, lots of them, started house- 
keeping with me. I sympathize with a remark of the 
late Senator Stanford. When his gardener told him 
that the robins were getting his whole crop of cherries, 
he said : *Ah ! Why, then, we must plant more cherry 
trees.' I sit on the porch at twilight and listen to the 
whip-poor-will, the catbird, and the quail, but the 
robin's song is the best of all." 

It was not easy for Miss Sanborn to disregard her 
humorous outlook on life even when writing on 
serious subjects. A writer in the Cleveland Plain Dealer 
of July I ith, in commenting on this difficulty which 
attends all humorists whether in literature or poli- 
tics, says : ** She was humorously indignant over the 
humorous way in which her serious efforts were 
misunderstood. Her humorous tendencies were strong, 
and she asserted that they handicapped her, and yet a 
leading reviewer has said that * next to Julia Ward 
Howe no woman so finely interpreted the intellectual 
life. ' " 

In many of the press notices Miss Sanborn is spoken 
of as the leading woman humorist of America. Though 
her humor was such a marked characteristic, its qual- 
ity is so familiar to her friends that there is little need 
to dwell upon it. She had both wit and humor, and 
the wit often showed itself in sharp, sudden flashes, 
of which Miss Frances Willard said, " Its play is like 

63 



that of summer lightning on the clouds, so quick, 
varied and irradiant." She believed in puns within 
reasonable limits, and in her lecture on Bachelor 
Authors y in speaking of the hymn writer Isaac Watts, 
she produced a pun which might well claim the 
record for its number of words. In the New England 
churches of her childhood there were upon the racks 
in every pew copies of Watts'' and Select Hymns. 
Referring to his fate as a bachelor, Miss Sanborn 
remarked that it was rather curious no lady seemed to 
care for Watts and select him. Her friends would 
probably agree that Miss Sanborn's most delightful 
humor came out in her lively and spontaneous talks. 
In her Memories and Anecdotes in the description of the 
Princess Massalsky, known under the pen name of 
Dora D'Istria, there is a good example of her colloquial 
style in the vivid portrayal of a humorous situation. 
Dora D'Istria, whom Miss Sanborn had made the 
subject of one of her lectures, was an extraordinary 
woman, widely known in Europe as author, philan- 
thropist, traveler, artist and advocate of freedom. The 
quotation was well applied to her that " she looked 
like Venus and spoke like Minerva." When Dora 
D'Istria came to America, Miss Sanborn, writing in 
her seventy-sixth year, says : 

" I called on her at a seashore hotel near Boston. She 
had just finished her lunch, and said she had been en- 
joying for the first time boiled corn on the cob. She 
was sitting on the piazza, rather shabbily dressed, her 

64 



skirt decidedly travel-stained. Traces of the butter 
used on the corn were visible about her mouth and 
she was smoking a very large and strong cigar. A 
rocking chair was to her a delightful novelty and she 
had already bought six large rocking chairs of wicker- 
work. She was sitting in one and busily swaying back 
and forward and said : * Here I do repose myself and 
I take these chairs home with me and when de gen- 
tlemen and de ladies do come to see me in Florence, 
I show them how to repose themselves.' 

" Suddenly she looked at me and began to laugh 
immoderately. * Oh,' she explained, seeing my puz- 
zled expression, * I deed think of you as so deefferent ; 
I deed think you were very tall and theen, with leetle, 
wiggly curls on each side of your face.' She evidently 
had in mind the typical old maid with gimlet ringlets. 
So we sat and rocked and laughed, for I was equally 
surprised to meet a person so * deefferent ' from my 
romantic ideal. Like the two Irishmen, who chancing 
to meet were each mistaken in the identity of the 
other, and as one of them put it, * We looked at each 
other and, faith, it turned out to be nayther of us.' " 

Of Miss Sanborn's book on Southern California, 
which combined truth and humor, the Los Angeles 
Times o£ ]u\y lo says: **Miss Sanborn found that this 
land, at which she poked good-natured fun and on 
which she bestowed clever praise, benefited her health 
and she returned again and again, making many friends 
and avowing herself to be ' fascinated by that summer 

65 



land of Hellenic skies and hills of Hymettus, with its 
paradoxical antithesis of flowers and flannels, straw- 
berries and sealskin sacks, orange blossoms and snow- 
capped mountains, where winter looks down upon 
summer ; a topsy-turvy land where you dig for your 
wood and climb for your coal ; where squirrels live 
in the ground while rats build in trees, and rivers 
flow bottom side up, invisible most of the time ; a 
land where you go outdoors in December to get 
warm, and where boys in December may snowball 
butterflies on the tops of the mountains.' " 

The kindly feeling of Miss Sanborn's many friends 
in California is expressed in a tribute of the Pasadena 
Star-News of July lo : "Kate Sanborn will never see 
California again, and Pasadena will never welcome 
her, bringing her fresh, tireless, vivid enthusiasm to 
new fields. Death came quietly to her on Sunday at 
the beloved farm at Holliston, the farm with its fields 
and trees, its dogs and horses and pets that she loved. 
The keen, witty, ever -youthful spirit slipped away 
softly to seek new adventures, and the going brought 
a sense of personal loss to hundreds of those who were 
proud to call her friend." 

A stranger looking over a file of the reviews of Miss 
Sanborn's books would be struck with the extraordin- 
arily favorable tone of the comment. It is true that 
her experience with publishers and critics was excep- 
tional, and the uniformity of favorable criticism is a 
fact which forms a part of any estimate of her work. 

66 




MISS SANBORN AT THE DOOR OF BREEZY MEADOWS 



The easy good-fellowship of her style, its freedom 
from anything formal or artificial or self-conscious, 
the good-humored, but slap-dash attacks upon all sorts 
of solemn humbug, the compact values underlying 
the attractive style — all help to explain the friendly 
w^elcome which awaited Miss Sanborn's writings. Al- 
though Miss Sanborn was a constant writer of books 
and contributor to newspapers and periodicals, she could 
say in looking back over an experience of fifty years, 
that she had never had a manuscript of any kind re- 
fused. It was never her fate to receive one of the 
printed slips of polite regret which are thought to be 
the common lot of authors. Most of the critics of her 
style speak of its easy and familiar qualities. Professor 
Fred Lewis Pattee, author of a recent critical work 
upon American literature, wrote of Miss Sanborn's 
style : 

"It is like a week-end visit with those who before 
were to me all too often mere books and abstractions. 
You make them alive — persons whom you make to 
appear like personal friends." 

"We thought we knew a few of the men and women 
described in Memories and Anecdotes y' was the com- 
ment of another reviewer, "but after their being re- 
vealed by Miss Sanborn, we must acknowledge that 
they were merely passing acquaintances until she spoke 
words which caused them to open their hearts to us." 

"A delightful and refined literary style," "sparkling 
wit and good-natured sarcasm ;" "splendid scholarship 

67 



and high ideals ;" *'a blending of humor and common 
sense, forming a style which is exquisitely delightful" — 
these are fair examples of the general characterization 
of Miss Sanborn's work as a writer. The following 
comment will appeal to all who knew Miss Sanborn, 
either through her conversation or her writings: 

"Kate Sanborn sees and sets forth with the clear eye 
and skilful hand of genius such things as everyone has 
experienced, but no one had thought to tell of." 

And in similar vein another critic remarked : 

"Probably as funny people and as funny things are 
happening to everybody as to Kate Sanborn, but she 
has the rare facility of seizing the fun and turning it 
over for the amusement of her friends." 

Miss Sanborn also appropriated to her own use the 
amusing happenings of her experience, and was often 
accustomed to draw upon them when some special trait 
or resource was called into play. Such was the case of 
the "old fellow" mentioned in her Bygone Sketches, 
"tall, lank, thin, with a narrow head and long straight 
hair, to whom my father gave many articles of cloth- 
ing. I was in my father's study when Professor 
Sanborn, finding nothing else available, had bestowed 
an old high hat of abnormal size. It was tried on 
and the head of the visitor was completely obscured. 
The hat rested on his shoulders, only a few wisps of 
the long hair which he wore in a thin imitation of 
distinguished clergymen and statesmen being visible 
at the neck. 

68 



" *You can't wear that', said my father, decidedly. 

" *It is a leetle large,' said the grateful recipient, re- 
appearing from beneath the extinguisher, *but I guess 
I'll take it along. My hair may thicken up.' " 

Thereafter whenever circumstances looked particu- 
larly unpromising Miss Sanborn was wont to remark 
with a cheerful smile that something better "may 
thicken up." 

Or she might in such a case fall back upon the 
phrase of an early instructor who came to Dartmouth 
to teach the modern languages of foreign parts, and 
whose own acquaintance with English had not become 
discriminating. He came in one day to report the de- 
mise of a near and dear friend, and exclaimed in his 
utter dejection, "I am vere mooch disgoosted." 

So of the solemn individual who had retired from 
business to engage in the cultivation of swine, and who 
introduced himself in calling upon Miss Sanborn, by 
saying, "We have a common bond of interest — hogs." 

So also of the excited person with whom there had 
been a discussion over some business transaction, who 
walked up hurriedly from Metcalf station, flourishing 
papers in his hands, and exclaiming, "I've got the 
dockermunts. Miss Metcalf, I've got thedockermunts." 

Miss Kate liked also to recall the mental picture of 
a faithful coachman, a huge Irishman, whom from 
her upper windows she saw and heard standing off 
some bore or agent who was insisting on an interview: 
"I tell yer," he said, "Miss Sanborn's not at home. 

69 



She's gone away to the Adonoracks or somewhere/' 
Perhaps nothing was more often remarked upon by 
those who talked with Miss Sanborn or reviewed her 
literary work than her inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, 
illustrations and apt citations. It had been her good 
fortune to know an unusual number of famous racon- 
teurs, and their stories were filed away in her retentive 
memory, to be brought out as circumstances might 
suggest. The interesting people of literary history, such 
as Dr. Johnson, Sidney Smith, Charles Lamb, Tom 
Hood, Theodore Hook, Madame DeStael and Lady 
Morgan, were almost as real to her as were living 
people. She had at her tongue's end everything that 
had been written by or about such persons, and seemed 
almost to carry on conversations with them. 

Miss Sanborn gained recognition in other lines of 
literary work than the writing of books. In the 
notices of her career she was often described as a 
journalist. For most of her active life she was a con- 
tributor to some newspaper, writing a weekly letter 
on current events, or a column of literary comment, 
or a department of book reviews. To fill any bits of 
spare time in her busy life she had a number of 
literary diversions, such as printing at the end of the 
year a string of stories about the unusual or ludicrous 
incidents of farm life, and sending the leaflets to friends 
at Christmas. She always liked selective work, as 
shown in her calendars, some of which, as well as 
My Literary Zoo and her volume on the Wit of 

70 



Wonieriy were worthy of being called anthologies. In 
making up all these volumes of selections which ap- 
pealed to her, Miss Sanborn's guide was her optim- 
ism, and her controlling thought was expressed in the 
preface to her Sunshine Calendar : "Modern authors 
indulge altogether too much in the morbid and un- 
intelligible. Pessimism is contemptible and cowardly 
in print or in life." 

The Somerville Journal^ to which Miss Sanborn had 
contributed book reviews and weekly letters, calls 
attention to another field in which she did pioneer 
service : 

"Miss Sanborn was one of the pioneer club women 
of Massachusetts, having been the founder and first 
president of the New Hampshire Daughters. She 
was a member of Sorosis of New York, and the Bos- 
ton Authors Club, and had recently been made an 
honorary member of the Professional Women's Club 
of Boston." The association with the club women of 
her native state was an especially valued experience. 

Naturally Miss Sanborn was among the first to real- 
ize the new era which was opening for women. She 
felt that adaptation to the changing conditions must 
be a matter of time, but there was no more vigorous 
advocate of a "square deal" for women. "She has 
always rejoiced," says a writer in the Louisville Post, 
"in the achievements of women, and her ardent fem- 
inism has been more effective than we realize. " 

In looking at Miss Sanborn's life as a whole, it 

71 



seems possible to trace the same influences that had 
moulded her character in the early years at home. At 
that time, when the Puritan race had reached its 
mellow maturity and before its blood was thinned by 
emigration, it developed among its other homemade 
products a friendly spirit of neighborliness. A good 
example was the shrewd, kindly, old-fashioned coun- 
try doctor like those at Hanover. Such a man was a 
living tonic, knowing all about his patients and brac- 
ing them up by the mental medicine of his hearty, 
magnetic personality. Miss Sanborn never lost this 
human, neighborly, thoughtful interest. The number 
of her friends who felt their dependence upon her 
sane and stimulating counsel was surprising. Her 
tremendous energy and her wholesome ambition to be 
doing something worth while seemed to grow with 
her years. No doubt one of the reasons for her suc- 
cess was her carrying into a life of broad activities the 
natural, direct manners and concrete human interests 
of her early surroundings. This was well brought out 
by the literary critic of the Boston Herald in review- 
ing one of her books : 

'* Miss Kate Sanborn is a natural Yankee woman, and 
whatever subject she may take up is sure to be enliv- 
ened by her wit and humor. She touches no subject 
without leaving it in a different light from what it 
was in before. It is the perpetual mingling of the 
Yankee woman and the woman of the world which 
surprises and delights one. She is almost the only living 

72 



writer in New England among women who can 
write entertainingly for the amusement of her readers." 
At the time when she began her work, the Yankee 
traits of ingenuity and invention had broadened in 
their scope and New England was sending out men 
who were pioneers and originators — men like Gen- 
eral Dodge and Senator Morrill, who have been men- 
tioned as coming from the Hanover region. General 
Dodge was literally a roadbuilder, for he was the 
chief engineer of the first railroad to the Pacific. 
Justin S. Morrill, whose friendship Miss Sanborn 
prized so highly, was a striking instance of the men 
who originate policies of lasting and expanding in- 
fluence. The far-reaching effect of his Act to Establish 
Colleges for Agricultural, Scientific, and Industrial 
Purposes is only beginning to be realized. Miss Sanborn 
was inspired by the same fine enthusiasm as these men 
whom she saw going out into the world and achieving 
noble careers. She broke through the limitations by 
which the women of her time were hampered, and 
became herself in many worthy fields, a pathfinder and 
pioneer. The natural measures of a strong personality 
seem to be the range of its influence and the sort of 
impression it has left upon other people. Those who 
are widely known are generally persons who have 
appeared habitually before the public or have gained 
attention by some great discovery or achievement, or 
in case of literary people, those who have written popu- 
lar works of fiction. Miss Sanborn many years ago, 

73 



retired from the lecture field, and the books which 
she wrote were generally such as appealed to some 
special interest. Yet it has often been remarked that 
her influence was to a surprising extent far-reaching 
and persistent. She was known in almost every part 
of the country, and her memory is cherished for her 
bright and discriminating views of life and for her 
sane and helpful suggestions in regard to ways of 
living. In Boston she was intimately known and a 
few additional comments from Boston newspapers may 
aid in giving a just idea of the esteem in which she 
was held. 

The Advertiser of July i ith said : "Human, humor- 
ous, delightful and lovable Kate Sanborn has been 
carried away from this world of strife, and our elders 
who found invigorating enjoyment in her spirited 
humor, pungent pricks at all that was artificial in life, 
and contagious optimism, will miss a * best friend.' 
She is an admirable example of the importance 
of industry as a help to inheritances of talent and 
humor. Before she went to Smith College as a teacher, 
she got worlds of experience teaching and lecturing 
about the country ; and her sparkling humor made her 
friends with all she met. Always a * homey ' woman, 
she found nothing in life so good as caring for her 
quaint house and beautiful farm at Metcalf. She lived 
as she wrote, simply, wisely, and well. Her Metcalf 
neighbors considered the week ill spent if Kate San- 
born didn't have them over for an hour of real New 

74 



England talk, punctuated by sober war thoughts and 
relieved by her ready wit." 

It is the comment of the Traveler of July i o that 
"The little band associated with the *Augustan Age' 
of literature in this country is diminished by the death 
of Kate Sanborn. She was a well-established essayist 
when Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Thoreau 
were in their prime. She was a student of literature 
and a pungent analyst of life." 

The Post of the same date says, "The passing of 
Kate Sanborn leaves a gap in the pleasurable memor- 
ies of our people. For more than two generations, the 
name of Kate Sanborn has stood for so much of that 
which makes for inspiration, for delight, for counsel 
in the intimate relations of life, and for instruction 
also in literary understanding, that the loss is widely 
felt to be personal. The work of Miss Sanborn is 
memorable for its force in the direction of the thought, 
the purpose, the inspiration of our people. Hers was 
a long life, approaching closely the limit of the Psalm- 
ist, and in it she won a place very near, not only to 
the people to whom she immediately spoke, but to 
those of us who follow her." 

Miss Sanborn's dear and honored friend. Miss Edna 
Dean Proctor, has crystalized the description of her 
character in a tribute written for the Granite Monthly 
of Concord, New Hampshire : "A warm heart, a 
valiant spirit, trenchant yet kindly wit, and keen in- 
sight, love of work and high ambition, were combined 

75 



in her to form a unique, delightful, vivid personality. 
Her books, her generosities, her brilliant sallies, her 
loyal friendships will long be treasured by her host of 
friends. Asking one who knew her well what single 
adjective would best describe her, the answer was, 
* Refreshing.' This was most true of her. There was 
nothing monotonous or stereotyped about her. Her 
entrance into a room was like a cool breeze springing 
up in a tropic day. Who that has enjoyed her hospi- 
tality can ever forget her home and her? — so gracious, 
so hearty she was — so lavish of her treasures for the 
pleasure of her guests. Such welcome be hers in her 
new life as she gave her friends in this !" 



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